A prior art system for automatically milking cows, and is probably adaptable for use with other mammals that are milked, is illustrated in FIG. 1 as including cow pen 12 where the cows spend most of their day, eating, sleeping, eliminating and chewing their cud. The cows have been trained so that, from time to time (when their bags are full and the cows need to be milked), they leave cow pen 12 and go to robotic milker 14 that is located in passage 16, including entry portion 18, exit portion 20 and milking portion 22, where robotic milker 14 is located.
The cows in pen 12 access robotic milker 14 by pushing open one way barriers of gates 24 and 26; gate 24 is between pen 12 and entry portion 18 of passage 16, while gate 26 is between entry portion 18 and milker portion 22 of passage 16. After the cows have been milked by robotic milker 14, the cows return to pen 12 by pushing open a one way barrier of gate 28 between milking portion 22 and exit portion 20 of passage 16 and by pushing open a one way barrier of gate 30 between exit portion 20 and pen 12. While a cow is being milked by robotic milker 14, she is prevented from leaving milking portion 22 because gates 26 and 28 are locked closed. Gates 26 and 28 can be opened by the cows pushing against a barrier of the gates upon completion of the milking process.
Because each of gates 24, 26, 28 and 30 has a one-way barrier, the cow is supposed to be able to only walk from pen 12 into entry area 18, thence to milking area 20, thence back to pen 12 by way of gates 28 and 30 and exit portion 20 of passage 16. The barriers of gates 24, 26, 28 and 30, in the prior art arrangement, are typically spring biased to open in only one direction so that the barriers pivot about vertical axes in response to the cows pushing against the gates.
A problem with the prior art arrangement is that many of the cows can not be trained to push the barriers of gates 24, 26 and 30 to the open position. In addition, some cows are able to open the barriers of the prior art gates in a direction opposite to the desired direction by pushing against the spring biased barriers with sufficient force. Hence, the prior art system of FIG. 1 has been found to function satisfactorily for only a relatively small percentage of cows. The prior art gates also are relatively expensive to build and maintain because of initial and replacement costs associated with the springs that have a tendency to wear.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,584,261, Hart et al., discloses a dairy parlor gate that is pivotable about a horizontal axis. The gate is made of a non-electrically conductive material that does not interfere with an electromagnetic field generated by an electronic identification system for use with animal-worn transponders. Sensors responsive to the transponders activate a motor that causes the gate to pivot about the horizontal axis, to enable the cow to gain access to a milking area. Possible problems with this system are that the non-electrically conductive materials in the gate appear to be relatively expensive, as is the motorized system for driving the gate about its horizontal axis. In addition, because a cow approaching the sensor is likely to be moving as the transponder moves past the sensor, there is a high probability of the sensor not sensing the transponder adequately. Consequently, the reliability of the motorized automated system to enable cows to move through the gate is likely to be reduced.
It is, accordingly, an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved gate for farm animals.
Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved gate for enabling farm animals to move in only one direction from a pen to a destination location, e.g., a robotic milker, wherein the gate is relatively inexpensive.
A further object of the invention is to provide a new and improved gate for enabling farm animals to move in only one direction from a pen to a destination location, e.g., a robotic milker, wherein the gate is constructed so that the farm animals can more reliably open the gate as the animals move toward the destination location.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a new and improved gate for enabling farm animals to move in only one direction from a pen to a destination location, e.g., a robotic milker, wherein the gate includes an arrangement for facilitating training of the animals to use the gate.
An added object of the invention is to provide a new and improved automated milking facility wherein animals to be milked move in only a single direction through highly reliable one way gates that the animals are easily trained to walk through.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a method of training farm animals to push open one way gates that swing about horizontal axes.